They call it zero entry,
the way the surround
leans into the water
and becomes the bottom
of the pool, slowly angling
deeper and deeper beneath
the water’s surface. This way,
toddlers can reverse their lives
and, guided by their mothers, ease
from dry land into a worldly womb
as wet as the ones they left behind,
though much colder. The soles
of their feet scratch on no-slip floor
as water climbs their ankles, then their
knees, as they shriek random delight,
as their mothers recognize each other
from yesterday, the day before,
the day before and say hello
and chat about pre-school.
Just this morning someone asked me,
You don’t have kids, do you?
Didn’t you want them? One of the
moms tells her child to stop splashing
the other mom’s kid. That’s rude,
she says. Wide-eyed with their children
the moms explore the jungle gym,
their private island of giant plastic
lily pads dribbling water, magical
to someone who has never felt rain,
who doesn’t know pain is the floor
of the deep end slanting always
out of reach from your feet.
Snack time rolls around and
they slope back to water’s edge
and the toddlers shiver in the cold,
even wrapped in towels and with
their mother’s arms around them,
and the mothers say Bye-bye and
See you tomorrow
to each other.
A Pushcart Prize nominee, Jennifer Hambrick is the author of the poetry collection
Unscathed (NightBallet Press), nominated for the Ohioana Book Award. She is a widely published poet, with hundreds of poems in literary journals, including
Chiron Review, The American Journal of Poetry,
The Santa Clara Review, The Main Street Rag, POEM, the major Japanese newspapers
The Asahi Shimbun and
The Mainichi, and others. Jennifer Hambrick has received numerous awards and other recognitions for her poetry, including First Prize in the 2018 Haiku Society of America’s Haibun Contest, and from Tokyo’s NHK World TV, the Ohio Poetry Association, and others. Jennifer Hambrick lives in Columbus, Ohio. Her blog
, Inner Voices, is at
jenniferhambrick.com.